


dancing lights - cantrip; evocation; v,s,m*; concentration, up to one minute

by the merienes tranch (lilhalphys)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Pre-Relationship, potential spoilers for episode 43
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 15:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16875027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhalphys/pseuds/the%20merienes%20tranch
Summary: *(a bit of phosphorus or wychwood, or a glowworm)Fjord kisses Caleb, and Caleb kisses Fjord, and it doesn't mean anything.





	dancing lights - cantrip; evocation; v,s,m*; concentration, up to one minute

“It’s a cantrip,” Caleb says matter-of-factly.

Fjord finds himself distracted with the way the dancing lights - the only light in the room - bounce across Caleb’s face as they chase each other around the ceiling. Each time the light hits his face just so, so that he looks nearly skeletal in his gauntness, Fjord’s stomach pangs with worry despite knowing it's all an illusion.

“Doesn’t make it any less impressive.”

The corners of Caleb’s mouth pull to the sides - never quite a frown, never quite a smile, but Fjord lets it hurt anyway, knows that it would not matter how Caleb reacted. “You always say that, you know?”

Fjord doesn't answer, doesn’t really know how with how out of the loop he’s been left by Caleb’s unreadable face. Instead, he takes Caleb’s hand, the one not holding his book, in his own. He drags his thumbnail against Caleb’s palm, sighing as it catches against picked-at calluses and old burn scars, careful, careful to not break skin.

Caleb sighs, and his hands are cold. The irony of it almost makes Fjord laugh, humorless.

Instead, he says, “Tell me about yourself.”

There’s a moment, Fjord barely catches it, when Caleb glances up from his book and looks Fjord in the eye. “What do you mean?”

“Like before we met, all of us. What did you do?”

Caleb sighs, half-closing his book before pausing, opening it back up again, and resuming his reading. “Well, I was born poor, and I was poor when you met me. Not, heh, not really a whole lot between point ‘A’ and point ‘B’, ja?”

“The fire-“

“I got into magic as a young boy,” Caleb says, voice tense and unwavering. “Accidents happen.”

“Your arms, then.” And Fjord’s hand unconsciously slides up the one in his grasp, the calluses in his hand slot, for an instant, perfectly against Caleb’s own, and Fjord feels an emotion he never learned how to name. His fingernails catch occasionally on Caleb’s coat sleeve as he moves upwards, in small holes or just divots in the leathery fabric, until he’s sliding his hand across Caleb’s shoulder.

“Ja. Ja, of course.” Caleb has relaxed, his face slackened and back loose, but his eyes are bright and piercing as ever, looking at Fjord with something between fear and threat.

As he leans in, Fjord decides that Caleb is very distracting with his blue eyes and dirty coat and mussed up red hair

As Caleb’s book gets trapped between them, the spine of it digging into Fjord’s stomach, Fjord wonders if the way Caleb is pressing his hands into Fjord’s shoulders is an intentional diversion, to keep him from thinking too hard about what Caleb didn’t say.

As Caleb’s lips, cold as the rest of him, press against Fjord’s, he hopes not, he hopes not, he hopes not.

-

_Fjord thinks about the way fire eats through dry underbrush and decides that’s something like “consume,” too._

_-_

Caleb realizes that his coat is on the floor and decides that’s sacrifice enough. He had lost control of the lights during the kiss - kisses, he supposes - but had since summoned them again. Now, he watches them float in circles along the ceiling, occasionally running into or passing each other at his whim or slowly turning finger.

He looks over just in time to see Fjord look away.

Fjord had taken off his boots and partially unlaced his undershirt, had given up so much more ground than Caleb. Now, there’s almost a foot and a half of cold, empty mattress and mussed up sheets between them.

Fjord opens his mouth and closes it, over and over like a fish gasping for air.

Caleb allows himself to revel in the quiet and the way Fjord’s cheekbones stand out in the harsh light. “Did you love her?”

Fjord twitches slightly. “Who?” Startled, surely, but good at hiding it.

“Avantika.”

“What about her?”

Caleb wonders if he kissed Fjord for the same reason that Fjord slept with Avantika. Then, he wonders if Fjord kissed him for the same reason that Fjord slept with Avantika and his stomach turns sour.

“Did you love her?”

“No, I - I, no. No. I didn’t love her, per se, I-“

Surely not, though.

“Do you love us, the group?”

Surely.

“Yeah, I mean, I would have to think so? If this ain’t love, I don’t know what love is.”

And Caleb doesn’t ask, “Do you love me?” so Fjord doesn’t respond, “Of course,” so Caleb doesn’t say, “You shouldn’t.”

-

 _Caleb kisses Fjord and it’s been so long it's like riding a bike, but with tightness filling  his lungs like rising water._

**Author's Note:**

> im widofjord. its me.
> 
> ill probably add more notes and tags later but i really wanted to post this tonight! ill try and get to updates for other things (alls faire and rock salt) soon! esp with break coming up!
> 
> thanks for reading! as always, please kudos if you liked and comment if you can!


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